Visser desperate to sign off with silverware

Personal glory may have ebbed from him under the current system at Edinburgh, with only six tries to show for his efforts so far this season, but that has been replaced by a new steel that makes them more likely winners. The old, Barbarians style rugby may have been great for entertainment but the kind of resolve that held out London Irish in the dying seconds of the game on Sunday is more likely to bring silverware.

Still, Visser admitted, he does sometimes hanker after the days when he was running in 17 tries a season, but as one of the survivors of the run through to the Heineken Cup semi final that the chuck-it-about style earned, he does see the benefits of playing with a harder edge.

Like Alan Solomons, the head coach, Visser is certain that the team of a couple of seasons ago would have folded under the London Irish pressure, but the current variety is more committed, more determined and more focussed on results.

"The character showed out there," he said. "We work hard for each other and we want to work hard for each other. It is easy to play rugby when you are in front, but to come back from being behind shows we are very tight. We are all friends which matters on the pitch because everybody is putting their body on the line. That is exactly what you saw at the end of the game.

"The type of personnel is very centred on that [resuts]. We have great team men in there, men who will give their all. Back in the day, we used to chuck the ball around and I scored a lot of tries. It was all good fun but we did not win many games. We have flipped that around now. I don't score many tries but we are winning games."

He sees the result at the Madejski Stadium on Sunday, where they managed to hold out even when London Irish drove the ball over their line with the clock past 80 minutes, as the launchpad for a double strike at glory as they go for the European Challenge Cup and a place among the elite in next season's Champions Cup.

"It is going to take a massive amount of work but this win will put us in good stead. We talked in the changing room about the habit of winning and that is something we are getting on the right side of," Visser said. "This helps our confidence, especially the pack who worked enormously. It showed that, when we got it right for those first twenty minutes, it was unbelievable. We put 16 points on them with no response. If we can replicate that for longer we can really put teams away. You learn to do that by playing in games like this. On top of that you are playing knock out rugby which is an added incentive."

For Visser personally, there is the further incentive still that if they can beat Newport Gwent Dragons at BT Murrayfield in a couple of weeks, then the final will be at the Twickenham Stoop where he will be plying his trade next season in Harlequins colours. What better way to arrive at your new home than lifting a cup as part of a title-winning side?

"The perfect way to give something back to the club, to repay them, would be by winning a trophy," he said. "We have some other goals too. We are desperately trying to get that sixth spot for the league to get back into the Champions Cup which Edinburgh deserve next year. I want to leave on good terms.

"The run-in now favours us, slightly. We are at home against the Dragons. They are a good team but at home you would expect us to put a good performance on. It is there for us to try and make it to a final. Dragons are a very tough team and they have shown that against Cardiff but so are we and we showed that against London Irish.

"It shows the character, the fight of the boys, to get underneath the ball at the end and give it all and stop the try essentially. You make your own luck and that is the way it is. The Edinburgh of old would have probably let that through. The Edinburgh of now stops that. They may call it luck but at the end of the day it is giving your all and be in the right position to stop stuff like that."